


Hypnosis

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-23 03:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11394879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Percival would never be quite sure how he ended up in this situation.





	Hypnosis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



Curiosity had led him to become a detective. 

And curiosity had led him to read the leaflets slipped under his office door. 

And it was, ultimately, curiosity that had landed him in this whole mess. 

*~*

Gellert had seemed a fascinating oddity at first. He was all sharp edges and piercing eyes. In dark corners of old breweries and on dark street corners he was the sort of dangerous yet alluring man that made Percival’s heart race. He felt it in his very bones – the strength of Gellert’s magic. 

He had seen that look before, usually among some of the more choice pieces the aurors brought in. He should have distrusted it on site, feared it. He should have relied on his common sense and experience. 

Instead, he leaned in closer, and allowed Gellert to brush a breath against his lips. 

*~*

Percival was not a fanatic, he was too intelligent for that, too stubborn. But he knew how trapped his kind felt. He knew how trapped he had felt as a child. _Set Magic Free._ Such a populist slogan. Percival could hardly believe that anyone could fall for that. 

Yet even he had read the brochures. 

But that was not what got him. It was letting Gellert talking him into a fog of latent desire until he went home and smoked far too many muggle cigarettes as he fought the tingling that ran down his spine for hours after their meetings. It was letting Gellert take his hand and lead him upstairs and feeling hands against his thighs and bending his head to taste the tender skin of Geller’s neck. 

What got him was deciding that he could handle this on his own and never saying a word to anyone. 

*~*

Gellert, always far too clearheaded after sex, would ask him questions about his cases. Percival resisted giving away too much for as long as he could, but Gellert never seemed terribly interested anyway. Though he probed as some things more insistently than at others. The Salem crazies interested him especially for some reason. He never cared to explain himself to Percival, and Graves decided soon enough that he really shouldn’t ask. 

But he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t a bad detective. All the cigarettes and orgasms in the world couldn’t silence the warning bells growing louder and louder in his head with every meeting. 

He began to watch Gellert more closely but couldn’t pick up many clues from him. All of his usual tactics backfired. He had the extraordinary sense that Gellert viewed him as a means to some ulterior purposes. 

But he had the most fascinating blue eyes. 

*~*

Magical hypnosis was not something Percival knew much about. He knew that voice, eye contact and touch were primary conduits for such magic. To be subtle it had to be done wandless, which is why so few excelled in the art. 

“But he’s powerful enough for it,” Percival murmured to himself, startling the auror who had been giving his report. 

“Sir/”

Percival waived at him dismissively. “Enough for now. We’ll resume later. Leave me.”

He heard more than saw the auror leave. His office was quiet. One of Gellert’s leaflets lay face-up in a half-open drawer. A drawer Percival could not remember opening or ever even using. He shredded the leaflet and burned it for good measure. 

It didn’t help. 

*~*

“Why are we doing this?” Percival managed to ask one night. 

“Because it feels good,” Gellert said lazily from the other side of the bed. He reached out and ran his long fingers over Percival’s thigh. “With all the darkness that’s spreading through this city these days… Don’t you think we deserve something good?”

 _This isn’t good,_ Percival thought. _Nothing about what we’re doing is good._ “That’s not why we’re doing this. You want something.”

“Very good, detective.” The condescending teasing in Gellert’s voice makes Percival sit up. Gellert mirrors him easily, as though he was expecting that reaction. Percival has begun to notice this – Gellert’s uncanny ability to mirror his every action, to predict what he will do. Not in a divination sort of way but in the way of someone who has been practicing and studying a certain manner for a very long time… 

Percival reached for his shirt. 

Gellert’s hand came to close over his wrist. “No.”

“Let go of me.”

“Now, now, Percy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You’re very antsy today.’

Percival wrenched out of his grip and pulled his shirt on, almost getting the sleeves tangled up in his haste. “We shouldn’t do this anymore. It’s been…pleasant, in a way. And your ideas are all very exhilarating but—‘

He had reached for his slacks and, coincidently, his wand. Only his wand was no longer there. Slowly, Percival turned around. 

Gellert was holding two wands, grinning. It looked almost boyish. Almost. Boyish smiles were rarely so cold. 

“Why don’t you stay, detective.”

“I won’t tell anyone about this—about you, if that’s what you’re—“

“You’re right. I have wanted something from you. And while I’ve been preparing for the right moment I see I have made you jumpy. Now I never wanted to hurt you. I still don’t.”

Gellert took a step toward him. Percival retreated, one step, then another. Very soon, he had his back against the wall. The path to the door was blocked by Gellert and Percival did not have his wand. He swallowed, nervously. 

“Haven’t you enjoyed this, though?” Gellert continued. “When we first started, I remember you agreeing with me that magical folk have been oppressed for too long.”

“I said it was unfortunate, yes. I said I thought magic could do wonders for the world. But—“

“But it can’t while the muggles rule.”

“I follow the law. I don’t create it.” 

“That’s a matter of circumstance.” Gellert was only a few inches away from him. 

“No, it is not.”

“But it is. Think of all the good that could be done, detective. All the lives that could be saved – muggle and wizard alike.”

“Is that what you’re after?” Percival couldn’t help but scoff. “Saving lives?” He was not so blind. Gellert was out for his own power first and foremost. It was what had attracted Percival in the first place. 

“You’ve already gone too far, detective. You have lost your innocence, believe me. No one would ever understand you being here.”

Percival knew it was true. “What is it that you want?” 

“I want to be you. For a short while. There’s a boy. A boy you’ve helped a couple of times. Credence.”

“Credence?” It took Percival a while to recall the name and face of the boy. He had bumped into him a couple of times on the street. He had always looked like he needed a kind word, and Percival felt obliged to provide. An instinct of sorts told him that the boy had magic. To what extent he could not say, but he was unlikely a muggle. Of course, given who his mother was, there had never been any hope that he would have been trained. But he could be wrong. He certainly had never seen an actual display of magical ability from the boy, which in an untrained wizard would be quite rare, if not impossible. “What does Credence have to do with this?”

“He knows things. He may be able to help me track down a powerful force. The same one that has begun to terrorize this city.”

“I’m not even sure he has magic.”

“That’s not important, in this case.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I do if you’re going to—“

The tip of his own wand was suddenly pressed under his chin. Gellert tipped his chin up and leaned in very close, his warm breach making the skin on Percival’s neck prickle. “Don’t fight it detective. You want to set magic free. You want to free this city of the dark force haunting it. And, deep inside, you want me.”

*~*

The last thing Percival remembered was his own face peering at him out of the shadows of the room. Hands that looked and felt just like his slid over his face and his neck. And his own voice said, “Do not worry. I will not kill you. Perhaps, one day, I will come back and wake you. And you will see how true the world has become.” 

The rest was darkness.


End file.
